SIEM REAP, Cambodia - What is it with all the tourists who want their photo taken in front of everything?
Everywhere I go it seems I have to politely hang back while some idiot tries to look cool posing for the camera. And oh man, if you get caught behind a Japanese tour group - you wait hours while everyone takes their turn playing model.
What do people do with these photos?
I pity the poor folks back home who are subjected to the boring slideshow. Here's me giving the peace sign in front the Emerald Buddha. Here's me raising my glass of beer outside the Heart of Darkness bar. Here's me pointing at the big carving in the Anchor Wat temple. Look how big it is compared to me! He he.
OK, some I get. Like sitting on the toe of the largest Buddha in Thailand or petting a monk's pet tiger. Even the repetitive photos of arms around the tuk-tuk driver or guest house owner. Those I understand.
But I just don't get the motivation behind the others. So many times they pose in front of something stationary and inanimate. It's never an interaction with the place (same way as they travel, I suppose, but that's a whole other rant). Do tourists feel a need to prove they were some place? How does it capture what they saw and felt and experienced while traveling? And do they put those photos in frames around their house? No, probably just on Facebook or MySpace.
I simply don't feel the need for any of that. At the Taj Mahal one of the greeters followed me for five minutes trying to get me to stand in front of the magnificent building while he took a photo of me with my camera. Everyone else obliged happily, clearly oblivious to the fact that they would be tiny little dots in the massive landscape.
I take photos of the people around me. I try to find the moments that say something about the culture. My smiling face is mostly irrelevant. Maybe I'm just a photography snob. Maybe when I get home and show my family and friends the photos I took, they'll nod politely but wonder why there aren't any of me pretending to hold up a falling temple.
5 comments:
I gotta say you have a point, but I do love the pictures showing me and where I've been. I don't really know why. You did get me to think a little bit more about what exactly I'm taking pictures of though. Take a few of the cheesy ones with you in 'em just for me okay? :)
Gina
Megan,
Peggy says she is excited to see you next month.
We are really looking forward to seeing you as well next year.
Love,
Dad
i couldn't agree with you more re pics. so where are the cambo pics? oh, be sure and take a pic of peg on the back of the monks tiger. have you had your rice today? bobby
For all of you who want to see Meg interacting with local buildings and animals, just remember that nursery rhyme that went something like:
There was a smiling young lady from Niger
Who rode to town on the back of a tiger.
When she returned, inside was the lady from Niger
And the smile was on the face of the tiger.
Peggy
AMEN!!! I'm living with 20 ultimate tourists - well maybe something closer to 60 - and I STILL don't get it.
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